Are the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum and Ranger 2023 (the organization running the Ranger bicentennial program) spying on their critics? That is the issue raised by a Public Information Act filing made by author Doug Swanson to the City of Waco on Wednesday, January 11. In a conversation last December between Swanson and Russell Molina, head of Ranger 2023, Molina stated that he compiled a dossier on Swanson and that the Hall of Fame had passed along information to him about the research that Swanson had conducted at its research center. Begala McGrath, a Houston public relations firm hired by Molina, apparently used this dossier in efforts to foster negative press coverage of Swanson’s 2020 book Cult of Glory, which offered a critical view of the history of the Texas Rangers. Cult of Glory drew the attention of rangers, historians, and the wider public, particularly when advance publication of one chapter led Dallas officials to remove a Ranger statue from Love Field on June 3, 2020. The Texas Ranger foundation addressed the book’s finding in a carefully worded statement that can still be found on the landing page of its website as of January 12, 2023.
Neither Molina nor Byron Johnson, Director of the Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, responded to Swanson’s repeated queries as to whether the Museum had participated in this effort. The divulging of information on people using publicly supported libraries would seem to violate Section 552.124 of the Texas Government Code. It is at odds with the code of ethics of the American Library Association, which states that “[p]rotecting user privacy and confidentiality has long been an integral part of the mission of libraries” and specifies that confidentiality includes “information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired, or transmitted, including . . . reference questions and interviews, circulation records, digital transactions and queries.”
Since Molina and Johnson have not responded to Swanson’s repeated queries, on Wednesday, January 11 Swanson filed a request under the provisions of the Texas Public Information Act with the City Secretary of Waco, which funds the Hall of Fame and Museum, for any emails, written communication, emails, or reports that include the terms “Doug Swanson,” “Cult of Glory,” or “Refusing to Forget,” from May 2020 to the present. Until this issue is clarified, researchers using the Hall of Fame and Museum’s resources should be advised that their queries may be used against them by Ranger 2023.
The bicentennial of the Texas Rangers provides an opportunity for the Rangers, their supporters, and the Hall of Fame and Museum, to make an honest reckoning with the police force’s fraught past. As Ranger 2023 kicks off its campaign tomorrow at the Fort Worth Livestock Show and Rodeo, it seems very far from doing this.
